Dec 7, 2011

Apple has been facing many hurdles on the end of intellectual property rights infringements in China. After fake Apple stores, it’s the term of trademark issue. China court has rejected Apple’s claim to own the iPad trademark. The dispute is between Apple and Proview Technology (Shenzhen), a Taiwanese-owned company. It registered trademarks for the name IPAD in many countries long before Apple conceived the name for its tablet.

Proview Technology registered the name “IPAD” in the EU, China, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam between 2000 and 2004, according to trademark databases. In 2006, Proview Electronics (Taiwan) agreed to sell Apple the “global trademark” for the IPAD name for £35,000, but the two companies have subsequently disagreed about whether that deal included China. Apple filed a lawsuit for the trademark in China, but Chinese trademark office rejected the application because the trademarks are owned by Proview Technology (Shenzhen), another affiliate of Proview International, the group is Hong Kong-listed holding company, and not the Taiwan unit.